Great leap from Jess

['Neg]

[Rich]

Not an especially strenuous one. London - Cantebury on day one, Cantebury to Lille on day two and Lille to Brussels on day 3.

[barrybueno]

http://www.awimb.com/images/smiley_icons/hide.gif

[Chief Arrowhead]

['Neg]

[Peeler]

with

http://www.awimb.com/images/smiley_icons/rubchin.gif

[Rich]

Also, we're not booking accomodation in either of our overnight spots so hopefully we'll find somewhere to stay.

Any beer hall tips for Brussels?

[Rich]

['Neg]

Buy a 700c size inner tube and take that with you. If you punture just use some tyre levers to lift off the tyre. Take out the inner tube, put new one in. Park Tool do cheap levers with a small drawing explaining where to hook them in.

Practice it at home, by putting on your new inner tube and keeping the old one as the spare.

A good small lightweight hand pump would be good too.

Best thing is probably to just put proper punture resistant tyres on to begin with. Continental Gator Skin or something.

Beer will be everywhere.

[Rich]

box.

Are there any disadvantages to these puncture resistant tyres? I've done just over 1,000 miles on my bike since I've had it and already picked up two flats. Is that because of **** tyres?

['Neg]

2 punctures over a 1000 miles isn't too awful.

Could be **** tyres.
Could be too low tyre pressure?
Could be dodgy rims (just bad/cheap build, or dented?...)
Could be just that you ride quite roughly over jagged road surfaces?
Could be just unlucky?

What tyres do you have on now then?

['Neg]

have slightly more rolling resistance.

[barrybueno]

['Neg]

[Rich]

while the frame is a very good one on the Caad 10 the standard tyres it came with weren't all that. Anyway, this is them.

http://i.imgur.com/8W67T.jpg

[barrybueno]

['Neg]

Looks like many people confirm this here:
http://www.roadbikereview.com/cat/wheels/tires-clincher/schw albe/lugano/prd_411360_2489crx.aspx (http://www.roadbikereview.com/cat/wheels/tires-clincher/schwalbe/lugano/prd_411360_2489crx.aspx)

(I have bought super fragile Schwalbe Ultremo ZX ones for my new bike. But they roll by themselves practically and look cool. And I will only use them for some training rides and at weekends.)

Ahead of a proper long outing, I would consider putting on some tough continental tyres. These would be best I think:
http://www.wiggle.co.uk/continental-gatorhardshell-road-tyre /#more (http://www.wiggle.co.uk/continental-gatorhardshell-road-tyre/#more)
Very punture resistant and they should still roll quite well too.

[Rich]

business.

I just don't want to get ones with a high resistance that stop be building up the sort of momentum that I'd like to.

I understand that the French and Belgian road surfaces are pretty good as well.